This course covers fundamental concepts of rendering and ray tracing.
Each student implements a ray tracer from scratch. With each project students add a new feature to their ray tracers.
The related theory and implementation details are discussed in the lectures.

Course Objectives

The main objective of this course is to introduce students the fundamental concepts of image syntesis in computer graphics.
At the conclusion of this course students will be able to:
• Understand the stages of a general purpose rendering pipeline,
• Implement ray tracing for image syntesis and lighting simulation,
• Indentify aliasing and sampling related problems in graphics, and
• Obtain the necessary background knowledge for following the state-of-the-art advancements in rendering related research in computer graphcis.

Students must prepare a project web page for each project (except for Project 0) that includes at least one image rendered using his/her project code, clearly showing that the requirements of the project have been completed. This web page can have multiple images showing different aspects of the project. Each image must also have a render time next to it (as well as hardware information). The images on the project web pages must be PNG or JPG. Students can convert the output images of their ray tracers using any image conversion software.

All project web pages of a student must be under the same web directory. The naming convention for the project web pages is prjN.html, where 1 ≤ N ≤ 13. Students should also prepare a 200x150 pixel thumbnail image for each project and put it in the same directory with the name convention prjN.jpg. For example, if the student's web directory is http://www.cs.utah.edu/~myname/courses/cs6620/, Project 1 submission should include:
http://www.cs.utah.edu/~myname/courses/cs6620/prj1.html and
http://www.cs.utah.edu/~myname/courses/cs6620/prj1.jpg
as well as all the files that are linked within prj1.html. Students should pick a directory before the Project 0 deadline.

Students must also submit their source codes for each project, which should NOT be included on the project web pages. Students are highly encouraged to use C++ for their projects.

Deadlines and Late Submissions: The deadline for each project is the class start time (3:40pm) on the date indicated on the schedule (see above). Each student is permitted 3 late submissions without penalty, provided that the project is submitted before the next class time. Additional late submissions suffer a 20% penalty applied at each following class time. No late submission is accepted for the final project without prior permission from the instructor.

All projects are individual projects. Group projects are not permitted. Therefore, each student must write his/her own code. Collaboration between students is encouraged, but code sharing is not permitted. External libraries and source code can be used only for additional functionalities that are not core parts of the projects, and they should be clearly indicated with comments within the source code.

Grading

Project 0

0 points

Projects 1-8

5 points

Projects 9-12

10 points

Final Project

20 points

TOTAL

100 points

University of Utah Disability Accommodation Policy

The University of Utah seeks to provide equal access to its programs, services, and
activities for people with disabilities. If you need accommodations in the class,
reasonable prior notice should be given to the Center for Disability Services, 162 Olpin
Union Building, 801-581-5020 (V/TDD), http://disability.utah.edu/. CDS will work with
you and the instructor to make arrangements for accommodations.